In case you haven’t been paying attention, The AV Club has another of its excellent Walkthrough featurs this week, sitting down with “Parks and Recreation” showrunner Michael Schur for an episode-by-episode tour of the show’s fourth and most recent season.
Parts one, two and three have been posted thus far; four and five will go up tomorrow and Friday, respectively. This is the sort of deep-core examination of television that only happens on the internet, where space considerations are irrelevant and there’s always room to squeeze in another anecdote. And though the DVD set will surely have commentary tracks on some if not all episodes, Erik Adams’ conversational questions (and, more importantly, his followups to Shur’s answers) shape the stories to the season, expanding on developing themes and bringing ideas to the fore that might have been lost in a group chat.
Basically, it’s great. The insights into the character of Leslie’s political rival Bobby Newport — and the casting of Paul Rudd to play him — are reason enough to dig in. But there’s also the small matter of “Parks and Recreation” being one of the best shows on television, and therefore this sort of dissection is not only rewarding, but a great deal of fun to read.
Speaking of fun, if you can get through Schur’s explanation of the importance of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine’s “Get on Your Feet” to a certain scene without grinning like an idiot, well, you’re clearly dead inside. Sorry about that.